This invention relates to a motor vehicle body repair bench provided with standard supports for body repairing jigs, these supports having three degrees of freedom of movement.
Many types of benches for repairing and/or checking damaged motor vehicle bodies after an accident are known. They generally comprise a pair of parallel longitudinal members to which crossbeams are secured from which depart members known in the art as "jigs" for securing to or checking portions of the motor vehicle body.
A first type of such benches, which is still widespread, comprises jigs that are removably secured to the crossbeam and each have a geometric configuration such as to reach through an appropriate element the portion of the motor vehicle body involved in the repairing operation. With such a bench the repair and/or checking of the motor vehicle body is facilitated and simplified; however, a series of expressly designed jigs is required for each type of motor vehicle.
Numerous attempts have been made to eliminate the use of special jigs for each type of motor vehicle. Thus, repair benches are known which substantially adopt the "metric" or "measurement" system in which a substantially universal fixing and/or checking member translates over the entire longitudinal and transverse extension of the bench and also in the vertical direction so that any point of the motor vehicle body can be reached without resorting to members having a particular spatial configuration (jigs). Such a "metric" system therefore does not require a large stock of jigs, but has the great disadvantage that it does not permit a "positive" repair of the motor vehicle body. The term "positive" is used in the relevant art and the present specification to define a method of repairing by which various points of the motor vehicle body can be simultaneously retained and/or checked completely independently of one another.
Thus, the disadvantage of the repair benches based on the "metric" system consists in that, for example, when two support members are located on a single crossbeam, it necessarily limits the alignment therebetween with the result that it is not possible to check points of the motor vehicle body located asymmetrically on the right or the left of the crossbeam. Although, on the one hand, the jigs are eliminated, on the other hand, no "positive" repair can be carried out as, when the repair operation involves an asymmetric fixing and/or checking, as mentioned above, the fixing of one point has to be abandoned before proceeding to fixing of another point.
The consequences of this method are well known to those skilled in the art and are such as to render dubious the advantages of such systems over the one mentioned above, using fixed jigs specially designed for each motor vehicle.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate or reduce the disadvantages of the known repair benches by providing a repair bench which does not require the use of jigs formed integrally with the support member and different for each type of motor vehicle and always bulky and expensive, but requires the provision of specific elements of minimum dimensions and cost within a structure which is even more sturdy, accurate and reliable than the conventional ones.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a repair bench which associates certain advantages of the repair benches using the "metric" system, consisting essentially in the possibility of making an estimate of the deformation of the damaged motor vehicle body, with the advantages of a "positive" repair and ease of use of the conventional benches using "jigs".